We arrived in Savusavu after a fast 3-1/2 day passage from Tonga. The town is a custom’s check-in point and will be our home for a few days.  Since all the mooring buoys were occupied, customs allowed us to raft up to SV Javelot who was tied to the custom’s dock–perfect! The dock is alongside the Copra Shed Marina so hot showers and a good restaurant were within sight of our boat. After processing immigration and agriculture forms and getting the boat interior fumigated since we sailed from Tonga, we walked to town to get some Fijian currency and groceries. The local market was bustling with activity and we picked up some coconuts, veggies, and the all-important kava, which is needed to present to chiefs when you visit small villages.

Some activities that occupied our time over our 4-day stay in Savusave:

Dinghy Sailing
Jacintha joined a youth sailing club for a few hours of Optimist sailing in the bay. The wind picked up when it was her turn to sail so she was mainly used for ballast while the boat was sailed by a more experienced local boy.

Misc. Boat Things
We had a few repairs to make after our last passage. Ian, our self steering wind vane, chafed through his control line early in the morning on our last day of passage, so that needed replacing. Our Honda generator got drenched with seawater from a wave and stopped working, but fortunately started right up after drying out. Some of the ratlines needed re-tied as they were sliding down the stays. We ran out of propane in our main tank during our stay in Tonga, so switched over to our smaller reserve bottle. We re-filled the main bottle with butane since they don’t use propane here. We were also running low on gas (petrol) used for the dinghy and generator. A good washdown of the boat removed the thick coating of salt from the rough passage.